Virtuous Leadership!
A colleague of mine recently recommended a book, Virtuous Leadership that I just finished reading.  I recommend it highly (Scepter Publishers) for the following reasons:

Just look at the ethics crises we've experienced in white-collar crime, not to mention the denegration of families.  If you're a father, you need to read the book.  If you're a leader, it's a must read just like Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Dr. Stephen Covey) or How to Win Friends & Influence People (Dale Carnegie).

The book is brief (170 pages), well-organized and full of useful, relevant example stories of people who demonstrated the virtues of leadership.  You can purchase the book via my Amazon store or visiting the publisher, Scepter Publishers.  Leaders are constantly learning, & I'd recommend this book to you.

Demographic Winter: The Decline of the Human Family seeks to reawaken society to the importance of the stable, intact family, and engender a discussion and greater focus in the media, in academia, in the halls of policy makers, in religious circles, in the committees of civil society and in households around the world.  Our hope is that all of these circles will bring to bare on the problems facing the family the tremendous contributions each can uniquely make.  In this way, we hope to avert the storm that is now most surely coming on.

Visit their website and see a movie trailer at www.demographicwinter.com   -- if you're a business owner and you think that you have difficulty finding talented people to work for you now, just wait ... because in the next 5-10-15 years, it's only going to get worse.

Reasons, in my opinion, for the demographic winter:

• Out of marriage sex
• People waiting longer to get married
• People having less children (in China, it's a one child society)
• People waiting longer to have children
• Since 1973, over 40 million babies have been aborted.  How many scholars, political leaders, doctors, and teachers would've come with that 40 million loss?
• The viewpoint propaganda from the 1960's that there's a population explosion, and we need to give condoms and sex-education to ten year olds....

What's your opinion?  Again, go to http://www.demographicwinter.com/index.html and watch the movie trailer.
Charlie Breeding
www.breedingtrust.com
www.thepepcoach.com

Interesting e-letter from my friend, Karl Keating: fyi

KARL KEATING’S E-LETTER

March 25, 2008

TOPIC: TWO PROFILES IN COURAGE

Dear Subscriber:

Samuel Johnson remarked that "when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."

Let me put that in a contemporary context: When a man knows he is the object of a fatwa, he likely will make sure that he remains in the state of grace.

So my thinking went as I read about Magdi Allam, who was baptized by Pope Benedict XVI on the vigil of Easter. Allam is a deputy editor of "Corriere della Sera" ("Evening Courier"), Italy’s largest-circulation newspaper, which is based in Milan and takes a center-right political stance.

Allam, 55, was born in Egypt and writes on Islam and on Arab politics and culture. He has been a supporter of Israel, has condemned Muslim fanatics, and has defended the Pope’s Regensburg speech.

After Allam criticized Palestinian suicide bombings in 2003, threats were made on his life, and the Italian government provided him with a police guard, which he still has. He will need it all the more now that he has renounced Islam and become a Catholic.

Allam had been a nominal Muslim. He did not perform the customary five-times-a-day prayers facing Mecca, and he did not undertake the Ramadan fast. He did accompany his devout mother on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1991.

On Easter Sunday "Corriere della Sera" published Allam’s open letter to the editor. Addressed to Paolo Mieli, the letter is a moving proclamation of faith. Let me quote a few passages from it. The translation is my own.

Allam said, "Yesterday evening I converted to the Catholic Christian religion, renouncing my previous Islamic faith. I finally saw the light, through divine grace, the healthy and ripe fruit of a long gestation lived in suffering and in joy ...

"I am particularly grateful to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, who has imparted to me the sacraments of initiation--baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist--in the Basilica of St. Peter in the course of the solemn celebration of the Easter vigil."

Then the new convert showed that he had no intention of playing down his adherence to his new faith. Referring to his baptismal name, he wrote: "I have assumed the most simple and explicit Christian name: ‘Christian.’ Since yesterday, therefore, my name is ‘Magdi Christian Allam.’" 

He continued this way:

"For me [this is] the most beautiful day of my life. To acquire the gift of the Christian faith on the memorial of the Resurrection of Christ from the hand of the Holy Father is, for a believer, an incomparable privilege and an inestimable good. ...

"[This is the] authentic religion of Truth, of Life, and of Liberty. In my first Easter as a Christian I not only have discovered Jesus but have discovered for the first time the true and unique God, who is the God of Faith and Reason."

These lines are a strong challenge to Islam, which emphasizes the uniqueness of Allah--so unique, so isolated, that in Islam the dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation can’t be entertained in any way.

Allam is saying that the "true and unique God" is not to be found in Islam, which claims him but does not have him, and that the God of Islam is not really the God of faith and reason.

Later in his open letter Allam turned again explicitly to his newspaper’s editor and wrote, "Dear editor, you ask whether I fear for my life in the consciousness that my conversion to Christianity certainly will obtain for me a death sentence for apostasy. You are quite right."

Allam said that he will "face my fate with head high, with back straight, and with interior sureness of one who has the certainty of his faith."

Then he said that "His Holiness has sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church that until now has been too prudent in the conversation with Muslims, refraining from evangelizing in countries with an Islamic majority and being quiet about the reality of conversions in Christian countries. Out of fear. Fear of not being able to protect converts from condemnation to death for apostasy [from Islam] and fear of reprisals against Christian residents of Islamic countries.

"Well then, today Benedict XVI, with his testimony, says we need to overcome the fear and not be timorous in the affirmation of the truth of Jesus even among the Muslims. ...

"In Italy there are thousands of converts to Islam who serenely live their new faith. But there also are thousands of Muslim converts to Christianity who are impelled to conceal their new faith out of fear of being assassinated by Islamic extremists who hide among us."

Allam concluded his open letter by saying that he hopes the "historic gesture of the Pope and my testimony will bring out the conviction that the moment has arrived to leave the shadows of the catacombs and to affirm publicly our will to be fully what we are.

"If we cannot have here in Italy, in the cradle of Catholicism, our home, a guarantee of full religious liberty, how will we ever be able to be credible when we denounce the violation of such liberty elsewhere in the world?"

NOT EVERYONE WAS PLEASED

As you might expect, not everyone has applauded Allam’s conversion. Yahya Pallavicini, the vice president of the Islamic Religious Community in Italy, said that "there is no need, to demonstrate love for Jesus, to renounce the faith of the Prophet Mohammed."

Pallavicini said it was unfortunate that Allam was baptized in such a public manner; he thought it would have been better had it been done by "a priest in Viterbo," where Allam lives.

He went on to say that he did not understand how one could "renounce the tradition, the culture, and the truthfulness of the Islamic message," and he accused Allam of "apostasy."

The irony is that Pallavicini himself is an apostate: He was brought up as a Catholic!

THE OTHER COURAGEOUS MAN

I titled this E-Letter "Two Profiles in Courage" because not only has Allam done a courageous thing, putting himself even deeper into jeopardy, but so has the man who completed Allam’s reception into the Church: Pope Benedict XVI.

It would have been easy enough for the Pope to indicate that Allam should have been received into the Church by his parish priest--that, after all, is what is done almost universally. It could not have been an accident that Allam was one of only seven converts who were baptized in St. Peter’s by the Pope.

No, the Pope was sending a message, very much in line, I think, with what Allam wrote in his open letter. The message is that Muslims too ought to become Catholics and that Catholics ought to proclaim that truth, even at the risk of (or at the near certainty of) reprisals.

Islam is further removed from Catholicism than is Judaism; Judaism is further removed than is Protestantism. We have little trouble inviting Protestants to complete their faith by becoming Catholics. We invite Jews to do the same (as emphasized by the Pope’s recent revision of the prayer, used at Good Friday in the Tridentine Mass, that calls for prayers that Jews may convert).

The further away from Catholicism someone is, the more he needs it. It would be an act of uncharity to Muslims to leave them out of the picture. Allam thinks that Catholics have a duty to invite Muslims to become Catholics. Not only does the Pope think the same way, but he has put himself at risk in affirming this message.

That’s why we say, with joy, "Habemus papam!"

FOOTNOTE

Writing about the breaking story at GetReligion.org, contributor Mollie Ziegler sought to correct phrasing used by Reuter’s Philip Pullella in his report of Allam’s conversion.

She said that his opening paragraph "makes a common error that might not seem important but is. While baptism confers membership into a specific church body, people aren’t baptized a Lutheran, Presbyterian, or Catholic. They baptized into the Christian faith. ... On the radio and television, however, I and a few readers kept hearing about this ‘baptized a Catholic’ terminology. It takes a few more words, but it’s important to be precise when dealing with sacraments."

I agree it’s important, so I hope Ziegler will not mind if I correct her.

There is only one baptism, Scripture tells us. There also is only one Church established by Christ. That Church is the Catholic Church, which means that baptism is Catholic baptism, there being no other.

When a person is baptized, he actually is baptized into the Church that Christ founded, which means he is baptized into the Catholic Church--whether or not he understands that.

Thus, an infant baptized at a Methodist church is a Catholic, until, at some later point, he comes to understand himself to be a Methodist or something else.

An adult who is baptized at a Methodist church would cease to be a Catholic almost instantaneously, since he would understand himself to be, even during the ceremony, a Methodist.

However that may be, the fact is that baptism is a Catholic sacrament, as are all the other sacraments. Thus it is quite right for someone to say that Magdi Allam was baptized into the Catholic Church--because that is precisely what happened.

Until next time,

Karl

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If you have a comment about anything appearing in this E-Letter, please do not hit your Reply button. Instead, go to Catholic Answers' discussion forums at http://forums.catholic.com, where you may post your comment in the forum dedicated to the E-Letter. You will find a thread devoted to this issue of the E-Letter. Feel free to add your comment in the form of a reply to that thread.

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To subscribe to Karl Keating's E-Letter, send an e-mail to eletter@catholic.com and write "SUBSCRIBE" in the subject line or go to http://www.catholic.com/newsletters.asp.


To learn more about the Catholic faith and about Catholic Answers, visit us at http://www.catholic.com.

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The content of this E-Letter is copyright 2008 by Karl Keating.

My note:  I disagree with Mr. Keating's examples about a Catholic who becomes baptized as a Methodist ... perhaps because I was a Methodist who became Catholic.  To learn more about the Catholic faith, go to
https://www.lighthousecatholicmedia.com/p/cdclub/?cmd=refer;promo_code=1528
charlie

In Dec., 07 CBS-TV put out a documentary, IN GOD'S NAME about fifteen religious leaders from around the world. Their conclusion- read the post. Does "The Secret" and the Law of Attraction have similar beliefs with Christianity? Read the post<< MORE >>

Dialogue Between Christians & Muslims

As a personal mission of mine and in the spirit of "breeding" or generating Trust, I've been reading a book called, "Guidelines for Dialogue Between Christians and Muslims" by Maurice Borrmans, translated from the French by R. Marston Speight.

"Thus by their joint action Christians and Muslims have the opportunity to render a fresh witness to the reality of God Himself (sharing the first five books as one in the same), showing to all that in the midst of the human struggle for fulfillment there is possible an orientation toward the divine mystery. 

We believers "vie with another in good works" by serving young people, children, the handicapped, and the sick and the dying, by denouncing war and all murderous experimentation, because they consider life to be a gift of God and because they believe in the living God who loves life and who desires to see life come to full fruition. 

When they struggle against all forms of discrimination (sexual, racial, cultural, religious or national) and against the selfish appropriation of natural resources by individuals or collectivities so as to guarantee justice and equality of opportunity for everyone, they do so because they regard the riches of the earth as gifts from God and because they believe in a God who is free "to do what He wills" in love for all of mankind and in view of eliciting their free response to Him."  Page 98, Areas of Cooperation

My comment: while the run-on sentences are rampant, the spirit of this intent is clearly communicated.  It doesn't matter if you're Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Buddhist or Hindu -- at least Jews, Muslims and Christians believe in a monotheistic God, and have the exact same first, five books of the Bible and Koran ONE IN THE SAME.  Let us focus on our similarities of faith beliefs, not our differences.  Can I get an "amen" you all?  charlie

Is there such a thing a "breeding success?"   Can you form or breed the habits that make for success?   I believe that you can, and I've proved it not only with myself, but with my many clients.

If you're an individual, you might find help and assistance in your quest for excellence at http://www.breedingtrust.com/products.htm.   If you haven't signed up for my FREE newsletter ezine, "Monday Morning Motivation" go to www.breedingtrust.com

If you're a leader of an organization, you'll find www.thepepcoach.com of value to you.  Organizations are generally in one of three stages:  forming (starting off), storming (attempting to integrage and align efforts) or Norming (seeing the fruits of labor without much organizational pains). 

Audio and video coming to the blog soon, so stay tuned from time to time.
Charlie Breeding

September 5th, 2007

Welcome to Breeding’s Blog, the forum of Performance Improvement Institute, and conversation and interviews by Charlie Breeding.  We need more communication, collaboration to get cooperation in this world … don’t you think so?  There’s many problems to solve with and for the world … Hello World!

Relative to the movie, “The Golden Compass” that is due out on Dec. 7th, here’s an excerpt from the desk of Steve Wood, http://www.dads.org/

11/13/07

“It’s the most seductive, diabolical thing I’ve ever seen.  And the worst part about this:  it’s aimed squarely at children.

Dec. 7th, a new $150 million movie debuts starring Nicole Kidman, who says she’s a Catholic.  The movie is based on the first book of a trilogy called His Dark Materials by the militant atheist and children’s author, Philip Pullman.

Ten reasons to work against this film:

1.  Pullman completely flip-flops good and evil.  His alluring trilogy makes evil seem tood and good seem evil. Yes, masked with confusion, paradox

2.  Pullman presents demons as cool and neat.  Each demon is in the form of an animal; they’re like talking pets. How attractive..

3.  Children without demons are unhappy, misable and pathetic.

4.  Movie’s website shows children step-by-step how to “meet your demon”!

5. What the nun said as she threw her crucifix into the sea and embraced the sin of fornication without guilt or regret.  Humm, pretty damning

6.  How a child discovered tha he did, in fact, have his own personal demon, which he considered his friend and life-long companion - sad.

7.  How a 12-year-old temptress seduces her 13-year-old boyfriend in a way the blasphemes the Virgin Mary.

8.  A nightmarish picture of the final rebellion when the demons triumph over God and Christianity.

9.  In this movie, God and the forces of good are portrayed as nothing but a phony - even more laughable than the “man behind the curtain” in the Wizard of Oz

10.  Pullman glamorizes a moral system that could be summed up as: “If it feels good, do it!”  No, let’s not go back to the ’60s.

Kids will get Demon action-figures in their hamburger meals!

Pullman has won every imagnable literary award for children’s literature - more awards than J.K. Rowling.  His books are huge sellers in England.  I shudder to think how many children will actually begin playing with demons as a result of Pullman.  Make no mistake.  Demons are real. 

Pullman aims his poisoned pen at nuns.  A nun starts flirting with a man she met at a conference. As PUllman writes, “She felt her body aching for this man.  She thought to herself, ‘Will anyone bet better off if I go back to the hotel and say my prayers and confess to the priest and promise never to fall into temptation again?’

Action-figures with your burger dear?  Yes, forty corporations have licensed the little toys, games, and gizmos. 

What’s the Big Deal?  It’s only fiction. It can’t hurt anybody”

Well, you’re half-right - it’s fiction.  Uncle Tom’s Cabin was only a work of fiction, right?  Yet it turned America uside down - for the GOOD purose and effect.  Uncle Tom’s Cabin gives weight to the adage “the pen is mightier than the sword.”

Few forces on earth are more powerful than words.  In the hands of a skillful author like C.S. Lewis, words can promote virtue and faith.  In the hands of a skillful author like Philip Pullman, words can promote vice and atheism. 

Pullman HATES C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia.  He says, “I hate them with a deep and bitter passion.”  He calls Narnia “one of the most poisonous things” he’s ever read.

You see, I have to give the devil his due.  Pullman is a much better writer than J.K. Rowling.  And that’s why I think he’s even more dangerous.

Last month Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling announced to children worlwide that the beloved, grandfatherly character Dumbledore is “gay.”  As one Harry Potter fan said, “My head was spinning.  Wow! One more reason to love gay men.”  And homosexual activists hail Rowling’s announcement as a giant step forward for “gay rights.”

Four years ago, I warned Catholic parents to stay far away from Harry Potter  because it glamorizes occult practices.

Four years ago, in my radio broadcast of Set. 18, 2004, I predicted this (Pullman’s His Dark Materials book made to a movie) would happen.  I warned that Pullman’s trilogy books would be the next big craze after Harry Potter to lure children into the world of demons.  

The movie will hit America’s shores with Tsunami-like force on Dec. 7th, 2007.  (end) 

Don’t go see it!  Learn More Here from Dads.org